Later today, I’ll be on my way to New York City to take part in the Science-Based Medicine portion of NECSS. I’m very much looking forward to it, not the least because I haven’t been to New York in five years but even more so because I look forward to meeting up with the rest of the SBM crew and those interested in science and skepticism and trying, in my small way, to impart some little bit of what I’ve learned over the years about quackery, pseudoscience, and how to counter them. As a result, blogging might be more sporadic than usual for a few days. I mean, I haven’t even quite finished my talk yet, which is why I’m thankful for plane rides. Let’s just say that right now my talk is like my blog posts and as a result needs some serious pruning if I’m to finish it within the allotted time in a comprehensible manner.

In the meantime, there’s a little tidbit that I can’t help but comment on briefly. I’ve pointed out time and time again how antivaccine activists resent being called “antivaccine.” They will draw themselves up (metaphorically speaking if online) in a self-righteous fury and retort, “I’m not ‘antivaccine.’ I’m a vaccine safety advocate. I’m pro-safe vaccine!” It’s a retort that goes back to Jenny McCarthy in 2008 and by others even before, although it was Jenny McCarthy’s co-optation of that particular technique of denial that first brought it to my attention. It seems so long ago!
Of course, it’s a lie. The lie is revealed rather easily just by observing a type of comparison that antivaccinationists like to use not infrequently when they get a bit worked up. I’ve documented antivaccine activists comparing vaccination and their fantasy of “vaccine-induced autism” to everything from human trafficking, to rape, the Titanic, Nazi-ism, and, of course the Holocaust. In fact, comparisons to the Holocaust seem to be a favorite, complete with mentions of Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi physician who carried out horrific medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz.

Translation: “This congenitally handicapped person costs the nation, as a whole, 60,000 Reichsmark over a lifetime. People this is your money. Read Neuses Volk“

Neuses Volk was a mass-market, illustrated magazine aimed at a wide audience as the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy in Nazi Germany. It was dedicated to the “excellence” of the Aryan race and the “deficiencies” of Jews, Poles, and other groups and published many articles defending eugenic sterilization, often juxtaposing photos of mentally incapacitated children with those of healthy children.

I bring this up because a certain antivaccine crank, someone I’ve been writing about just shy of a decade now has over the last several months been trying to deny that he’s antivaccine, even going so far as to call himself “fiercely pro-vaccine” back in September. Yes, I’m referring to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., one of the crankiest of antivaccine cranks out there. RFK, Jr. is utterly convinced, against all evidence otherwise, that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal that used to be in childhood vaccines in the US until around the end of 2001, when it was removed from nearly all of them, is a major cause of the “autism epidemic,” as he spreads conspiracy theories about the CDC so obviously nonsensical that I almost feel embarrassed for him. Almost. His arguments in general are so full of crankery that it’s hard not to feel contempt for him.

So what’s he up to this time? Well, lately, RFK, Jr. has been doing his utmost to assist antivaccine advocates and “health freedom” activists to defeat SB277 in California. SB277, as you might recall, is a bill introduced by State Senators Richard Pan and Ben Allen that would repeal the personal belief exemption to school vaccine mandates. Seemingly every major antivaccine activist in the country has been invading California to try to defeat the bill, including, of course, RFK, Jr. had to be part of the action, while promoting his antivaccine movie Trace Amounts.

But some parents fear information about the hazards of vaccines has been suppressed, largely because of what they call the pharmaceutical industry’s influence over health officials. Many parents believe their children have been damaged by vaccines. When Kennedy asked the crowd of a few hundred viewers how many parents had a child injured by vaccines, numerous hands went up.

“They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone,” Kennedy said. “This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.”

Look at the contempt for autistic children (and, let’s be clear, this is about the myth that vaccines cause autism). Look at what RFK, Jr. says: “Their brain is gone.” In other words, they were human, but vaccines made them somehow less than human because what makes them who they are, their brains, is gone. RFK, Jr.’s reference to the Holocaust is unintentionally appropriate, but not in the way RFK, Jr. meant it. Such an attitude (“their brain is gone”) would not have been out of place in, ironically enough given all the Nazi analogies that antivaccinationists like to make, Nazi Germany. After all, one of the slogans used by Nazis to justify the T4 euthanasia program in which “mental defectives” were “euthanized” was “Lebensunwertes leben,” or “life unworthy of life.”

In all fairness, it’s obvious that RFK, Jr. isn’t advocating killing autistics. He is, however, expressing attitudes that allowed the T4 euthanasia program to be tolerated, even supported, by German civilians. Vaccines took away their brains! It’s a meme we hear frequently from antivaccine parents who believe vaccines caused their child’s autism. Their child was perfectly normal until vaccines ruined him! Vaccines took their “real” child away. This sort of thinking is also used as justification for “autism biomed” quackery that seeks to “recover” the child. The very word “recover” implies finding something that was lost, as though the autistic child is not the parents’ real child but the real child can be “recovered” with the appropriate quack treatments.

What I’d really love to see sometime in the near future would be for a journalist interviewing RFK, Jr. to answer his claim that he is “fiercely pro-vaccine” by asking him, “If that’s the case, then why did you refer to vaccines causing a high fever that takes away a child’s brain and then use the word ‘holocaust’ to describe it?”

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Comments

Wow, I cannot believe the arrogance, ignorance, and just down right hateful comments some of you have made here. I am well educated from a top University in the country and had a career, but now I stay home and take care of my Autistic child who was hospitalized after his MMR at 14 months, which he never should have been given and was already showing neurological issues related to the neurotoxins from previous vaccines. We have no family history to point to genetic pattern, and in fact Stanford University genetics department genetics screening produced no indication of any family history. I trusted fully the safety of vaccines and how I know the supreme court said vaccines are unavoidably unsafe, so Dr and manufacturers could not be held liable in any way which is part of why we are here. The quantity of vaccines given to young children has tripled in last 30 years, and our Autism rates, and other neurological and autoimmune system issues have gone up dramatically. In modern countries where they do one half to one third the vaccines we do here, they have much lower rates of these problems in their population and their infant mortality rates are much lower. Their are plenty of independent and foreign studies showing the toxicity of the aluminum, mercury for shots which still contain, etc. There is a doctor in the US that has a population of 3000 children that are completely unvaccinated until after age three and there are no autistic children. So much information. Do your homework. I did mine. I am living it every day. I will never be so blind again to just believe the status-quo. Open your eyes. If you still cannot see after you do the research, at least be respectful of other people and their right to choose.

And by the way, I am not anti vaccine. But I think we need to focus on reasonable vaccine policies and safer vaccines, not increasing vaccine company profits and draconian vaccine policy. When it comes to a medical procedure or putting anything in our bodies that incurs risks, people must have a choice. By the way, anyone here want to pay for the life long care my severely autistic child requires? The vaccine company sure won’t have to.

Narad, I’m not certain how long Parker has been out of the business of “lawyering” or how difficult it would be to activate her license. When she posts comments about the law, she mainly uses the papers that have been published by Dorit Rubenstein-Reiss….and she puts her own “spin” on those papers.

My husband kept up his license for several years after he retired from active practice because he did consulting work for his former employer and other lawyers in his specialty.

I was going to do a lengthy takedown of Kathy’s garbage, but instead I’ll just say this.
Vaccines did not cause your son’s autism. The six best candidates were chosen to be used as Test Cases before the Vaccine Court. All lost. And they didn’t just lose by a narrow margin either. The plaintiffs were trounced. They fared equally well on appeal. As for

I am not anti vaccine.

If you are reciting antivaxx talking points that we have seen and shown to be false numerous times already, then yes, you ARE antivaccine.
Finally, [citation needed] for every one of the factoids you spouted.

Whatever education you received from “a top university”, I’d ask for my money back or at the very least, repay your parents for the waste of money you had for your so-called “education” if you keep spewing out repeatedly disproved antivaxxer points without a shred of evidence.

And also, look at the title of the blog. Regulars do not suffer fools like you well here.

For whatever it may be worth to you, I am also the parent of an autistic child. Also the sibling of an autistic child. I myself have ADD. My other child has ADHD, as does one of my brothers (not the autistic one), while my remaining brother is dyslexic. I can tell you this right off the bat: unless your family is unusually keen to diagnose learning disorders and psychiatric conditions, you would not know if your family carried any genes pertaining to autism. The medical history can only take you so far. And Standford University department’s genetic screening can only take you so far, since autism is actually a highly varied condition and not all of the genes for it are known. What’s more, and your geneticist ought to have explained this, many of the known ones are de novo — which is to say they exist in the autistic person but not their parents. The mutation occured for the first time in either the germ line or in one of their gametes.

Your son was hospitalized after his MMR? Would you mind telling us what he was hospitalized for, or do you just want to lead us to think that it was *because of* the MMR without any of the bother of actually supporting that claim? I was hospitalized following some of my vaccinations, but it wasn’t because of the vaccinations. It was because I’d contracted meningitis. (And hey! There are now vaccines to prevent several of the major causes of that disease!)

Your son should not have had MMR because he had neurological issues related to the neurotoxins from previous vaccines? First off, you do realize, don’t you, that MMR is a live attenuated virus vaccine, and consequently doesn’t contain adjuvants or preservatives? No aluminum, no mercury, none of the stuff you yammer on about later in your post. I am a little skeptical of the quality of the homework you say you’ve done, quite honestly. Also, you don’t explain what sorts of issues or which “neurotoxins”, making it very difficult to evaluate your claim. I will note that there no vaccine contains ingredients which are neurotoxic at the doses given. And if you had actually done your complete homework, instead of perhaps cribbing off the cheat sheet given by an antivax website, you’d know that. Let’s go through some more of your claims:

The quantity of vaccines given to young children has tripled in last 30 years, and our Autism rates, and other neurological and autoimmune system issues have gone up dramatically.

“Quantity” is not as straightforward as you might think, so I’ll ignore that. But the main thing here is that you fail to show that these two things are related. Antibiotic consumption by livestock has gone up. Saturation of RF in the household has gone up massively in the last 30 years. Personal computer use has exploded. Per capita vehicle ownership in America has gone up. Total hours of “screen time” has gone up. Myopia has increased. “Star Wars” has become increasingly popular. Social media has gone from a handful of folks on Usenet to the vast, pervasive juggernaut it is today. Starbucks is everywhere now. Communist nations have increasingly gone capitalist. The Yangtze River Dolphin has perished. A lot of things have happened in the last 30 years; you need more than just a temporal relatoinship to show they have anything to do with one another — though just as a tip, several of the ones I listed have some actual evidence to suggest there might be a connection (to autism or to autoimmune disease), and they aren’t vaccines. They may, in fact, be things that people will find it much harder to give up. So why pin it all on vaccines, when all you have is a temporal association? Is it just because that’s easy and not something that will give you much headache to give up?

In modern countries where they do one half to one third the vaccines we do here, they have much lower rates of these problems in their population and their infant mortality rates are much lower.

Forgiving that you neglect to tell us which countries you are talking about (Afghanistan, for instance, would be a poor example to support your argument, with low vaccination rates and very high maternal and infant mortality), and forgiving that vaccination only affects infant mortality in a couple of cases, such as prevention of prenatal rubella and neonatal tetanus and is mainly about preventing *childhood* mortality . . . did you know that you cannot directly compare rates of autism or infant mortality from country to country? Different countries have different standards. Nations with low vaccination rates also tend to have poor access to medical care — this is usually *why* they have low vaccination rates, in fact, so it should be no surprise. In these countries, diagnosing autism is very low priority. They have bigger problems, so in general only the worst cases will actually get diagnosis, let alone treatment. Secondly, infant mortality cannot be easily compared either, because of different definitions of the term. In most of the world, a child must survive the day of their birth in order to be counted as a live birth, including industrialized nations such as those in Europe. If they die within a few hours of birth, it’s not counted. In the US, by contrast, any child who takes a breath outside the womb is considered a live birth and receives a birth certificate. You would expect, therefore, the US to have a much higher infant mortaility rate than, for instance, France, even with exactly the same actual events happening. The stillbirth rate would be higher in France, but there is nowhere that consistently even records those. What’s more, births outside the hospital may not be counted anywhere unless the child lives a few months or more, so again, those countries with poor medical access will have low vaccination and even harder to count infant mortality. You have to make do with estimates, and a well-educated person ought to understand the hazards there.

Their are plenty of independent and foreign studies showing the toxicity of the aluminum, mercury for shots which still contain, etc.

It’s probably too much to aks you to list them. Mercury is not in any childhood vaccinations in the US. (You never did say what country you are in, having just said “the country”, but I’m hazarding a guess here.) It was removed as a precaution as some were concerned about autism. And guess what? The autism rate continues to rise, while antivaxxers continue to point to increasingly miniscule mercury exposures despite that. If you’ve done your homework, why do you still cling to this? Aluminum, meanwhile, is a very silly thing to worry about in vaccines — you are exposed to far more through normal daily life. It is more widely used in European vaccines, incidentally, where government price controls demand more be done to reduce cost while increasing access. American flu vaccine supply is limited by the decision not to allow adjuvants in it — without aluminum, they have to use more antigen per dose. And certainly I’ve seen antivaxxers find a way to make that be the bugbear of the moment too.

There is a doctor in the US that has a population of 3000 children that are completely unvaccinated until after age three and there are no autistic children.

Oh yes, I’ve heard of him. It’s very easy to assure that none of your patients are diagnosed autistic. You don’t take any patients who are on the spectrum, and you either discourage parents from seeking diagnosis or you manage to get them out of your practice. And if you base your business on this, you have a lot of financial motivation to do so. This is not a remotely fair sample, I’m sure you realize, as an *educated* person. (Or would you like to buy some lovely oceanfront property I have for sale?)

When it comes to a medical procedure or putting anything in our bodies that incurs risks, people must have a choice.

You do have a choice. Seriously. Under current policies, you absolutely have a choice. It takes an enormously privileged life, or else a stupendous sense of entitlement, to think that being asked to quarantine if unvaccinated is an undue burden.

BTW, you started off with your qualifications — being “well educated from a top University in the country” with “a career”. That’s pretty vague, and if your qualification was in anything remotely relevant, you’d know that. I cannot help but wonder whether or not your vagueness for all of your claims is deliberate. After all, it’s easier to make claims if you do not have to actually back them up.

Incidentally, I also note you only claimed to have been educated at a top university. You dud not claim to have graduated….

“The influenza vaccine was about 19% effective for the 2014/15 season and is usually considerably more effective.” LOL

Well that is interesting, 20% is considered to be placebo so why bother pretending its the vaccine? that’s the lot of snake oil, highjacking a natural effect and selling it as a must have.

You’re confusing likelihood of preventing influenza with effectiveness of the vaccine. johnny won’t care about this answer, but I’m giving it for anyone who does care about the nuances of reality.

The influenza vaccine is upwards of 90% effective at immunizing a person to the strains contained in the vaccine. They measure this in clincial trials by looking at antibody titers. The problem is that influenza is extremely variable, and evolves rapidly. You may get exposed to a strain that wasn’t in the vaccine. So the likelihood of actually avoiding influenza depends not only on the vaccine but also on which influenza you actually end up encountering. Some years the vaccine is a good match; some years it isn’t. Your odds are definitely better with the vaccine, even in a year with a poor match, but precisely because it’s so variable, it’s mostly recommended for people at higher risk from influenza. This includes more people than you might realize: small children, women who will be pregnant during flu season, asthmatics, smokers, people with other lung problems, the elderly, the immunosuppressed (if they can get the vaccine at all), and people who are in institutional environments (lots of people in close quarters — schools, nursing homes, military barracks, group homes, prisons, etc.).

WOW what a cesspool of denial, insecurity, misinformation, bad science and anxiety at this Blog. After a complete analysis its clear whats going on here. I have reviewed lots of his posts and I see a common thread. Orac is scarred shitless because the science he built his entire life around is unraveling in real time and is moving away from his traditional training and he can’t stand it. So he lashes out against anything that isn’t conventional wisdom like a big baby having a temper tantrum. HAHAHAH Its so obvious.

Then you have the zoo of flying monkeys coming in to defend his tantrum. Not realizing they are getting left behind too. ALL LOST They’re arguments are weak so they must resort to personal attacks on people. Johhny, Kathy and Ken good job kicking ass against these Neanderthals.
At this Blog it should be called.
IN CHEMICALS WE TRUST!

Doug @193 wrote: “I don’t think reading ability is a big barrier for a lot of the anti-vax set.”

I wasn’t commenting on the reading ability of anti-vaxxers*; instead, I was attempting to point out that FDA package inserts attempt to communicate extremely complicated information couched in language that is by design set at or below the eighth grade reading level. Accordingly, much is lost in the translation/dumbing down process.

There is a doctor in the US that has a population of 3000 children that are completely unvaccinated until after age three and there are no autistic children. So much information. Do your homework. I did mine.

Not very well, if you can’t even identify the stone cold dead Mayer Eisenstein and get the order of magnitude of the fictional number correct.

“You’re confusing likelihood of preventing influenza with effectiveness of the vaccine.” calliflower

Love your ‘answer’.

Well that is weasle words, it’s not the fall off the mountain that killed the kids it was the sudden stop at the end. I admire your manure marketing. How about this for a film, again a medic who has whistle blown polio vaccination.

Thanks Theo, they are political waballoons really, it’s kind of fun pissing them off. Narad really took the bate and his knob must be red raw, I think he spends his time jacking off over his posts – until they unravel.

Well that is weasle words, it’s not the fall off the mountain that killed the kids it was the sudden stop at the end.

It’s not weasel words. It’s pointing out that you’re using numbers for different things and acting like they’re the same thing. I do not seriously expect you to acknowledge the distinction, however. You choose numbers by convenience, and like Humpty Dumpty with words, they mean precisely what you intend them to mean.

re: “calliflower” — well, there are worse things to be called, though stooping to a username distortion is an excellent way of showing your lack of an actual argument.

What I don’t understand is that back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, American lawyers successfully sued pharmaceutical companies claiming that vaccines caused a variety of illnesses, including unexplained coma, sudden infant death syndrome, Reye’s syndrome, transverse myelitis, mental retardation, and epilepsy. By 1986, all but one manufacturer of the diphtheria–tetanus–pertussis vaccine had left the market. This is when VICP was created.
Why were they refusing to manufacture vaccines?

JP
I agree that you don’t need to have much understanding of biology or chemistry to accept the evidence of the sciences, but it does help to really understand the evidence. For “dose makes the poison”, for example, it helps to have some general knowledge of mechanisms and rates of reactions, absorption, excretion, etc. if you want to understand why it is reasonable and “no safe amount ever” is such nonsense.
Among the antivaxers there appear to be large numbers who do not accept the evidence but are completely unable to refute it based on actual understanding of the sciences, while still asserting how educated they are. But the whole conspiracy thing also is huge. They seem to picture gangs of enforcers, decked out in funny tasseled surgeon’s caps, wearing big clunky rings with little symbols of cross scalpels over a retractor and aprons with bistoury knives and Collins forceps in the pockets, roving the world just looking for those who betray the secrets and anxious for opportunities to tear out tongues by their roots and cut throats across (the burying at the low water line, though essential to hiding the evidence, left to the enforcement orderlies).

Obviously, because the manufacturers kept getting sued, which, even if they won the case (and they usually did) or settled, ate up a lot of time and money. The ambulance chasers of the world are numerous and greedy.
So, the companies said ‘this isn’t worth it,’ and quit manufacturing vaccines, and the government realized they had to entice manufacturers to prevent epidemics, and the easiest way to do that was to crack down on the lawsuits.

Of those conditions.. let’s see: I think Reyes is genetic, epilepsy is genetic, and mental retardation is usually genetic or caused by something else, unrelated to vaccines.
Back in the day, they could distinguish mental retardation from brain damage caused by lack of oxygen. SIDs before the ’80s or ’70s cannot be reliably distinguished from child abuse or infants who were born with cardiac defects.
So a lot of your list was simply cr*p made up by the lawyers and thrown at the companies to see if they settled. Btw, a settlement is not the same as a ‘win.’

I agree that you don’t need to have much understanding of biology or chemistry to accept the evidence of the sciences, but it does help to really understand the evidence. For “dose makes the poison”, for example, it helps to have some general knowledge of mechanisms and rates of reactions, absorption, excretion, etc. if you want to understand why it is reasonable and “no safe amount ever” is such nonsense.

Sure, but I still think only a pretty basic knowledge of chemistry and/or biology is necessary even for that. Knowing what the various organs do is a good thing, I suppose* – and I guess a lot of people don’t. I have a decent knowledge of chemistry, though it’s not as good as it used to be – use it or lose it, y’know. But I don’t think you need to be a chemist or even particularly educated in chemistry to understand the fact that anything can be toxic in large enough doses. There still seems to be some sort of resistance to understanding it among a lot of people, though.

And I wouldn’t turn up my nose at people who simply accept scientific or medical consensus. I mean, TBH, that’s pretty much what I do – I’m not educated enough in climate science to really, fully understand the science behind it, even if I understand the basics. Ditto with a lot of things.

* I was very mildly proud of myself when, a few months ago while standing in line at a book signing – I was having Alison Bechdel sign my copy of Fun Home, incidentally – I was able to explain what the spleen does to the couple of ladies standing in front of me wondering out loud about it.

PGP Reyes is not genetic
“Reye’s Syndrome is a two-phase illness because it is almost always associated with a previous viral infection such as influenza (flu), cold, or chicken pox. Scientists do know that Reye’s Syndrome is not contagious and the cause is unknown. Reye’s Syndrome is often misdiagnosed as encephalitis, meningitis, diabetes, drug overdose, poisoning, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or psychiatric illness.”http://www.reyessyndrome.org/what.ht

You’re asking whether vaccination is worth it. There could be stupider questions — just wait till some C-grade celebrity leads the charge against indoor plumbing and electric lights.

and (to keep it on topic)

The concept of herd immunity having now been explained often enough that even state legislators understand it, since the beginning of this year lawmakers in a dozen states have introduced bills modifying vaccination policy — some eliminating the personal or philosophical exemption, others requiring school districts to make vaccination-rate information publicly available. Medicofascism? Some think so. But if ever there were justification for public intrusion into private decision-making, this is it.

He also takes on a few anti-vax talking points –

It’s not the mercury, it’s the aluminum.
Too many vaccines administered simultaneously or in close succession can overwhelm the immune system.
Vaccines haven’t actually been that effective — death rates were decreasing in the relevant diseases even before the vaccines were introduced.

And I wouldn’t turn up my nose at people who simply accept scientific or medical consensus.

Nor would I. We all accept things of which we understand very little. The simple fact of the matter is that there just isn’t enough time in any one person’s life for that person to understand more than a few topics well, a range of others with vague familiarity, and the rest with, at best, acknowledgment of existence. I see it as very much parallel to choosing which of the myriads of horrible things in the world that you can find the energy to combat. Just because we can’t fix them all, and some are “more important” than others doesn’t mean good can’t be done by someone who makes a “small” issue their cause. Striped equines may disagree.

The people who do deserve insolence are those who argue against well-reasoned and consensus when they have very little knowledge, or as you mention, actual resistance thereto. And then there are the people who pretend to know things and make stuff up.

troll
verb
gerund or present participle: trolling
1. informal: make a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
2. fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat.

Interesting how no one responded to the whistle blower on the polio fraud, I suppose it’s because she is a proper doctor and knows that polio vaccine is bullshit.

Only a true vaccine believer could watch that film and see nothing but nothing.

Herr puppet doctor it is a shame I am not Mr Hill and never have been, that’s the limit of your imagination. God hope you are not actually a doctor, what the hell must your diagnostic skills relate to. Looking at lists I guess.

johnny – you seem to think that every time you go into moderation it’s because Orac put you there. It seems far more likely you’ve triggered the automatic filters – possibly because you mistyped your name or email address, or included too many links, or some other poorly defined cause.

The fact that your message “Ah back in moderation” came through suggests you are not in moderation.

Well, what else would you expect from a sadistic troll like theo. When you point out the flaws in his twisted argument, he/she/it flees rather than defend him/her/itself.

But I got to admit, reading theo’s drivel is good for a couple of laughs, as well as showing people how morally deficient the typical anti-vaxxer really is. It’s already worked, showing a few nurses, doctors, and parents theo’s “argument’s” given them a good laugh and pretty much reinforcing to them the importance of vaccination. No one with critical thinking skills wants to be associated with theo’s or phillip “johnny” hills’ type of crazy.

you seem to think that every time you go into moderation it’s because Orac put you there

Oh, no, it’s far more nefarious. About two weeks ago, Phildo decided to start insinsuating that he was being moderated by everybody else (it goes on).

Not even Philip Hills, Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, is that stupid. The tediously repeated complaint is just filler for when he still craves attention but is too far in his cups or short for inspiring “new” material.

The recently started whining about the time of day is just more of the same embarrassment.

I love how the anti-vax loons continue to talk as if the apocalypse is about to fall on the medical establishment and their grand coverup scheme regarding vaccine “injury”. It’s literally the same arguments that I’ve been hearing for over a decade. A lot of these posts could literally have been cut-and-paste jobs from 2005.

What exactly is a “top University”? The place I hear is this term used most often is the Exposing Pseudo Astronomy podcast. Astronomy cranks and crackpots are always claiming scientists at “top” or “top 10” university support their whackaloon hypothesis, usually on Coast to Coast or other conspiracy radio shows. This does not speak well for “top universities”.

The story seems to have been an unexpected outcome of Ms Kolsch’s American Idol advocacy.. The gist of her censorious threats against a blogger is that any forged-signature shenanigans in which she may have been involved did *not* reach the threshold for having her struck off the Florida bar; so anyone who suggests otherwise should govern themselves accordingly.

That was late 2012 but alas, Popehat has not been called into the imbroglio.

“I want to apologize to all whom I offended by my use of the word [Holocaust] to describe the autism epidemic,” Kennedy said in a statement. “I employed the term during an impromptu speech as I struggled to find an expression to convey the catastrophic tragedy of autism which has now destroyed the lives of over 20 million children and shattered their families.” ‘

A Study of vax vs non vax in Germany is not going to cut for me or the rest of the refusers in this country. We want an independent watchdog to oversea the study. Capeesh?

As for money drumming there is no motive to not vaccinate or promote not vaccinating. What to sell a book? or some VIT C? Thats minuscule compared to the motive behind vaccines. I read there are 300 vaccines in the pipeline. Now thats a motive and you get the bonus free sales force from your heavily trained pediatricians. And your immune from lawsuit. Now thats MOTIVATION!

The fact of the matter is you do not need to vaccinate your children. Thats a myth that all of you got bamboozled into. 10’s of 1000’s of unvaccinated children roam this country thriving. Smart people like myself see through the propaganda and fear mongering and are not buying the sketchy science. We don’t accept the flimsy research on Mercury or Aluminum. There should be dozens of biological studies on both of those ingredients over the long term to understand how they work and effect our children.

According to Congressmen Burton
Invented in the 1920’s by Eli Lilly, thimerosal is 49.6% ethlymercury by weight, a neurotoxin known to be more than a hundreds times more lethal to tissue than lead.

Eli Lilly’s safety testing of the product consists of a 1930 study of 22 patients dieing from mengiococcal meningitis in an Indiana hospital. Patients are injected with the solutions and followed until their death, which is within days. Because the patients die of meningitis, they are declared to show no adverse reaction to thimerosal and the product is declared safe for use. Thimerosal is subsequently introduced for use in vaccines and in over the counter remedies as a preservative to kill bacteria in the product.

WTF are you kidding me? thats your science? I wonder if every American knew that history what they would do?

You cited the amish getting whooping cough. so what? nobody died, they were inconvenienced just like a flu or a common cold. BFD! Plus that vaccine doesnt work. guess what does work to lesson the symptoms and severity and prevent death? VIT C DUH! look it up. it sops up the toxins that the infection leaves in its wake that can cause death. Of course your medical doctor is clueless and is not trained to prescribe C only more toxic chemicals & antibiotics.

If you love your vaccines wonderful get your dope, shoot up your children and your selves every year. Bravo! Congrats enjoy your injected AL & Merc. Your protected in your own mind. I saw everyone discussing the flu shot. How can I honesty debate a group that defends the Flu shot? You have really drank the Kool Aid and are so far away from the truth its literally impossible to debate with you.

In Summary of this topic there are so many inconsistencies, gaping holes that can be exploited to take down the entire industry: Is it any wander why they never tell you both sides of the story when you take your child to the pediatrician? RED FLAG. They keep Doctors heavily trained in promoting safe and effective then fear mongering parents if they dont? Wake up!

Here is my list of easily proven and documented contradictions and malfeasance. Its simply too easy to blow a hole the size of China through this industry. and take it DOWN!
Shoddy science, contamination history SV-40 and XMRV, fraud, corruption, (Hep B and Flu Shot <idiotic), fear mongering, damaged children, 3 billion and counting, cover ups, heavy metal, attenuated viruses, No carcinogenic or mutagenic testing, Coercion, no long term follow up studies only short term surveillance, revolving doors between pharma FDA, CDC, congress, dismissal of science proving vaccines are dangerous. the terrible way we are treated by the pro vax crowd, defecting credible Medical Doctors blowing the whistle on the bunk vaccine science and history, the graphs showing deaths from VPD diseases were 90% eradicated prior to vaccines coming on the market, Vaccine efficacy vs actual effectiveness <-FRAUD, immunity from lawsuit, good honest scientists being censored or funding drying up, entire health care professions not vaccinating their children. Nurses and Doctors against mandatory vaccinating, Zero stories about damaged children in the media, personal attacks on anyone questioning the safety. its all ONE SIDED.

This is abundantly clear to me. It smells of a propaganda campaign built on DOGMA. The industry is terrified of something that they are not telling us about, and it shows in how they are acting and how they have manipulated the public suckers like you to gang up on the vaccines safety questioners. Anytime we FORCE medical procedures in the name of the greater good. LOOK OUT thats a red flag……COMMUNISM
When you start legislating removing exemptions you are asking for an outright war with parents. it will not stand and it will backfire with devastating consequences for the industry.

I will not be answering any questions I have made all my points here. I have nothing more to add to this topic.

…take care of my Autistic child who was hospitalized after his MMR at 14 months, which he never should have been given and was already showing neurological issues related to the neurotoxins from previous vaccines.

Simple question, Kathy: how exactly have you factually established the neurological issues your son was already showing were causally ralted to the vaccines he’d received previously? Be specific.

That conclusion derives, I trust, on some basis other than a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, seasoned liberally with a bit of “What else could it have been?”

What about them?
Oh, do you mean the ones being developed to fight cancer? That’s how much scientists have control on them.

the graphs showing deaths from VPD diseases were 90% eradicated prior to vaccines coming on the market,

Err, a decrease in death only means we had become good at treating sick people. It doesn’t by itself means that the diseases were on the way to eradication.
That you need are the graphs showing the annual number of cases prior and after vaccines were introduced.
Funny enough, these graphs show a very quick fall after the vaccines were in.
And even more funny, Countries which have decided to do away with vaccines (Japan in early 80’s, Ukraine in early 90’s) see an increase of sick people soon afterward. I guess a sewer broke, or something.

Also, you are not consistent. Are VPD potentially lethal, or are they just benign like common cold? It’s one or the other.

good honest scientists being censored or funding drying up,

And what would happen to bad scientists with dishonest research? Being censored and funding drying up.
How do you tell which is which?

its all ONE SIDED.

You must be kidding me.
In the past 20 years, stupid people like you had plenty of chances to put forward your concerns. You have your conferences, your media, your editors.
Eh, during the recent measles outbreak around Disneyland, a number of your leaders got interviewed by mainstream media.

Not our fault if your arguments keep falling like so many ill-built castles of cards.

@theo
Ah, thanks for the word salad, and proving that you hate children.

Please, keep on posting, so the world can see how illogical and full of hatred you and the anti-vax contingent really are.

Again, all of your supposed points have been addressed so many times before, so why should anyone bother to address you points again when you keep regurgitating the same old tired canards like a cow chewing its cud.

You also completely neglected the fact that VPDs can cause serious and sometimes lifelong affects other than death. Is maiming people in the name of science always ok for you, or just when vaccines are involved?

THEO answered:

[crickets chirping]

I’ll let you think about that one a little more. It’s a tricky question. But while you’re thinking about it, let me add on a followup question. You seem to think it’s ok for parents to sacrifice their children for scientific research. Is it ok for other people to sacrifice children, or are parents special?

I said:

Our local Amish had a pertussis outbreak a bit ago. They were terrified, some of them were pretty miserable, and there was definitely some self-quarantining going on. Not exactly thriving, although there were no deaths to my knowledge.

THEO replied:

You cited the amish getting whooping cough. so what? nobody died, they were inconvenienced just like a flu or a common cold. BFD!

Do you tell your customers you think that terror, weeks of misery, and self-quarantining are all no big deal? What exactly is a big deal to you?

Oh, BTW, [our local Amish] also have a separate school for their non-neurotypical children. My source says that the community is very pleased because it’s lead to better outcomes both for the neurotypicals and the non-neurotypicals. But my source also says that most communities still keep all their children in one school regardless of ability.

THEO answered thus:

[more crickets]

No thoughts at all on why they still have children with ADHD even though they seem to be undervaccinated for pertussus at least?

THEO exclaimed:

Wouldnt you want to know what 49 doses vs 0 doses does. I sure do.

I gave him great news:

Fortunately, you can get a pretty good idea of what they do by reading the multiple epidemiological studies on the topic. Some of them have been linked recently in this very thread!

THEO rejoiced, proclaiming:

A Study of vax vs non vax in Germany is not going to cut for me or the rest of the refusers in this country. We want an independent watchdog to oversea the study. Capeesh?

I’m a little surprised given how anxious you were to look at vaxed vs. unvaxed studies that you only are talking about one of the links we pointed out to you in that thread. One of them was by the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, at the University of Calabar, which is in Nigeria. That seems pretty independent to me of anything relevant.

What exactly do you mean by “independent”? As we’ve mentioned before, there is a study out there from a health insurance company, which has a huge financial incentive to keep their subscribers from getting sick. Is that enough? Would a study done by, say, Thoughtful House employees and financed by people like SafeMinds count?

Do you reject the German study because you think that people there react differently to vaccinations, or because they have a different vaccination schedule? Would a study that uses the US schedule be good enough for you?

I observed:

You still haven’t shown that kids are sicker now than they were when dying of smallpox or becoming paralyzed by polio for life were popular things to do, let alone that vaccines cause more harm than they prevent.

THEO responded:

[an entomological symphony]

I’m starting to see a pattern here. Maybe you should reconsider some of your positions.

I gave THEO a bit of a research assignment:

It’s kind of hard to justify that statement given that there have been vaccines that were pulled off the market. Were the researchers who discovered the problems with those vaccines mistreated in any way? Be specific.

THEO’s latest attempt to address the question is like this:

Here is my list of easily proven and documented contradictions and malfeasance . . . defecting credible Medical Doctors blowing the whistle on the bunk vaccine science and history

Not a very in-depth answer. Please try again. Note the “be specific.”

Lastly, I gave this challenge:

I still have a question for you. How do the power and profit motives influence the “different drummers” you like to quote and promote?

THEO actually answered, saying:

As for money drumming there is no motive to not vaccinate or promote not vaccinating. What to sell a book? or some VIT C? Thats minuscule compared to the motive behind vaccines. I read there are 300 vaccines in the pipeline. Now thats a motive and you get the bonus free sales force from your heavily trained pediatricians. And your immune from lawsuit. Now thats MOTIVATION!

It’s funny how there are at least three subtle advertisements for vitamin C in your response. You’re right that there are lots of customers for vaccines, but that’s because they have a headstart and a really good track record. Don’t worry, though. I’ve seen bottles of vitamin C priced up way higher than the markup on vaccines, so while you probably can’t beat them on volume, you can still make plenty of money on whatever it is you’re trying to sell.

And let’s not forget Dr. Wakefield’s attempt to replace the measles component of MMR with something that conveniently would require frequent boosters to be effective if it worked at all.

Have you ever looked into where the “different drummers” you like to quote and promote live? They seem to be doing quite nicely for themselves. Definitely better than what I live in. And they can get people to make big changes in their lifestyles. That’s power.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there are 300 vaccines in the works. Of course, most of those won’t pan out, because getting approved is hard. Then most of them are for things that are only endemic for certain areas, so that decreases the clientele. Also, there is probably overlap where the same diseases are targeted by more than one company, so that lessens the number any given company will sell even further. So you don’t have to worry about there being protection from every disease. There will still be ways for people to be miserable for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, THEO, I’m a bit disappointed. You didn’t respond to most of my points. I was expecting better from you.

Theo appears to be cutting and pasting random sentences from the NVIC and Age of Autism…stringing them together in an almost incoherent rant against vaccines held together by a generous helping of conspiracy-glue.

As for money drumming there is no motive to not vaccinate or promote not vaccinating. What to sell a book? or some VIT C? Thats minuscule compared to the motive behind vaccines.

The Brave Maverick Antivax Doctors seem to be doing all right with their cash-only practices in such locations as Manhattan, Scottsdale and Beverly Hills. A lot better than Dr Average Primary Care Physician dealing with health insurance.

I’ve never been clear how this supposed “profit” from vaccinations and the like works over here, what with the vast bulk of us healthcare types being on state salaries – y’know, the NHS – or is this just dismissed by THEO saying “communism!”?

“I’ve never been clear how this supposed “profit” from vaccinations and the like works over here, what with the vast bulk of us healthcare types being on state salaries” murmuring fxxwit

Well it’s not the coal face workers who profit dumbo – it’s the Pharma companies that con the NHS into buying futile unproven products like flu vaccine for multi millions. I suppose you could say the doctors are then kept employed by all the people who are fucked by the vaccine like the 800 kids with narcolepsy, so that is a kind of employment generator. You need to get out of bed and stop figging like Narad does all day long ans start looking at what is going on instead of seeing Pubmed as some kind of weird porn.

“I’ve never been clear how this supposed “profit” from vaccinations and the like works over here, what with the vast bulk of us healthcare types being on state salaries” murmuring fxxwit

Well it’s not the coal face workers who profit dumbo – it’s the Pharma companies that con the NHS into buying futile unproven products like flu vaccine for multi millions. I suppose you could say the doctors are then kept employed by all the people who are fucked by the vaccine like the 800 kids with narcolepsy, so that is a kind of employment generator. You need to get out of bed and stop figging like Narad does all day long ans start looking at what is going on instead of seeing Pubmed as some kind of weird porn.
Perhaps you have no idea what you think

Johnny, once again you lie, lie, lie.
It has been shown that the “800 cases of narcolepsy after vaccination” was nowhere near that number. This is the “child who died of measles was vaccinated” all over again.

[…] Way. Indeed, right before I left for NECSS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. himself was in the state throwing around Holocaust analogies as though his brain had been chomped by the Hitler Zombie. (Remember […]

THEO: Mistaking elements for compounds is major error. Sodium metal and table salt and different substances with different properties, as are mercury and thimerosal. Take high school chemistry again before you come back.

I’m not in a position to watch your video at the moment, but it’s pretty clear that you or whoever you’re citing is misinterpreting that. I just typed the key sequence t-h-i-m-down-down-down-down into PubMed and got back http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=thimerosal+toxicity and got back 203 results. Limiting the results to studies published after 1930 dropped the number of results down to 203. So it looks like you might be wrong about there not being any research done on thimerosal since 1930.

To hell with all of this debate about whether or not vaccines are safe or unsafe. .. There’s no easy on God’s green earth that any human being should be forced to accept an injection or ingestion of anything! This is a human rights argument. You will not force me to do this Amy more than you will take my guns. This will be the beginning of the next civil war! Some people are just stupid!

To hell with all of this debate about whether or not vaccines are safe or unsafe. .. There’s no way on God’s green earth that any human being should be forced to accept an injection or ingestion of anything! This is a human rights argument. You will not force me to do this any more than you will take my guns. This will be the beginning of the next civil war!

John: “You will not force me to do this any more than you will take my guns.”

So you’re the idiot that almost tore off my front bumper because you were in the left lane with a red arrow, and you did not want to wait for it to turn green… just gun the engine move into my lane and ignore all traffic laws.

The congressional hearing video from 2004 is crystal clear. The only study done was in 1930, as of 2004 the year of that hearing. Are you going to deny sworn testimony by the FDA? of course you are.

So we injected babies with mercury for decades with no studies. Thats just great. I have so much more trust now. smh

John is spot on!! you can’t force injections on people maybe in China not the USA.

I have a question. Where are all the autistic 30 year olds if its just better diagnosis and screening? My Gosh they must be everywhere! Sadly we never hear stories about them or see them. But I can name off a dozen stories of children with Autism of kids I know personally.

THEO: Again, mercury is not the same thing as thimerosal. And studies have been done, well after 1930, if you bothered to take five mintues to look something up. Face it, you’d rather let someone spoon-feed you the information, without bothering to do any effort to find the truth at all.

Well, I can show you more than a few in a number of Engineering Departments that I’ve had the luck to interact with – and more that I’ve met in every day life.

Autism is developmental delay, not developmental stasis – if you actually took the time to talk to an Autistic adult, they would describe their childhoods to be much like those that we see today – but there was always that small percentage that never really progressed & were institutionalized (or were / are in prison) or just died.

Seriously Theo – you’re such an idiot….lacking even a modicum of common sense.

Theo, I passed through my thirties some thirty years ago (yes, I’m in my 70’s now). You’re not willing to count people like me, still autistic after all those years (isn’t there a song kinda like that?)?

And you know what, John/ No one IS forcing you to be vaccianted, or to vaccinate your children. There will however be consequences should you elect not to do so–you may no longer be eligible for employment in some health care professions, and your children may no longer be eligible to renroll in public schools or childcare facilities, but that’s not the same thing at all.

I sure you wouldn’t be one to argue that exercising one’s personal freedom should be held free of any and all consequences…

To hell with all of this debate about whether or not vaccines are safe or unsafe. ..

Great! That should be a settled question by now.

There’s no way on God’s green earth that any human being should be forced to accept an injection or ingestion of anything!

Does that apply to feeding your children as well? Should a parent not be held responsible if, say, they don’t feed their children? Regardless, though, I don’t expect anyone to be forced to vaccinate. You just can’t participate in certain activities if you do.

This is a human rights argument.

You might have a point if there were an actual attempt to used force to vaccinate. So far, not so much. However, human rights are not absolute. Where’s the tradeoff between your individual right to say “I won’t do this thing that’s for my benefit just because you want me to do it” and the community’s right to protect itself from disease?

You will not force me to do this any more than you will take my guns.

Nobody wants your guns except gun thieves. This will be the beginning of the next civil war!I strongly doubt it, but let me know if that happens.

Even if that were true (it isn’t), thimerosal was in use for several decades in immunoglobulins and other blood products for many decades, in far higher doses than in any vaccine. Patients have been given up to 1,800 mg (that’s 1.8 million micrograms) of thimerosal intravenously without noticeable ill effects (the infamous Eli Lily experiments with terminal meningococcal meningitis patients in 1930), that’s 72,000 times as much thimerosal as there is in a flu vaccine. No signs of neurological damage have been observed except in doses several orders of magnitude higher than in vaccines.

This is good evidence that thimerosal in vaccines is not and never was a cause of neurological damage. Sorry to repeat myself, but I think a passage from this paper (PDF) published by the AAP last year is worth repeating:

Overwhelmingly, the evidence collected over the past 15 years has failed to yield any evidence of significant harm, including serious neurodevelopmental disorders, from use of thimerosal in vaccines. Dozens of studies from countries around the world have supported the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines. Specifically, the Institute of Medicine, and others have concluded that the evidence favors rejection of a link between thimerosal and autism.

Careful studies of the risk of other serious neurodevelopmental disorders have failed to support a causal link with thimerosal. In May 2002, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its 1999 statement on thimerosal after evaluating new studies. […] Had the evidence that is available now been available in 1999, the policy reducing thimerosal use would likely have not been implemented. Furthermore, in 2008 the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed the use of thimerosal in vaccines.

It is just ludicrous to claim that thimerosal in vaccines is any sort of issue given the level and quality of evidence we have now.

So here is a good documentary by a ‘proper doctor’ pointing out how Polio has a lot to do with ‘proper doctors’ spraying kids with DDT and not a lot do do with a successful vaccine. I still see no comment by Naradknobred about this example of a doctor sponsored epidemic and I wonder why?

“It is just ludicrous to claim that thimerosal in vaccines is any sort of issue given the level and quality of evidence we have now.” Krebby pants

A beautiful example of a vaccine failure denialist, so given you think thimerosal is so safe it should be in Hershey bars I suppose you would go along with the idea that ‘DDT its good for me’ makes sense. The fact DDT causes anterior horn demylination of course is a complete co incidence.

Vaccine failure denial is a wonderful thing for shares – well done that boy.

I love the ‘quality of evidence straw man’ it’s such a good market share booner. I suppose weapons of mass destruction did the same thing for the Middle East – sounded good on paper but in the field it’s a disaster. Vaccination is like that, all those years spent mixing wallop – it must make sense and even if it doesn’t work you can tell people it does.

Better still get governments to underight any fall out from the vaccine killing people and they will have to buy it. Surely governments and doctors don’t kill people do they?

“Careful studies of the risk of other serious neurodevelopmental disorders have failed to support a causal link with thimerosal. In May 2002, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its 1999 statement on thimerosal after evaluating new studies………” Drivel

What a pile of medical anecdote, how can the people responsible for making the shit evaluate it? Let’s ask Pol Pot to evaluate his ethnic cleansing – it makes sense.

THEO: “Where are all the autistic 30 year olds if its just better diagnosis and screening?”

Points to twenty-six year old son sitting on living room floor watching television. I was assured in 1991 he did not have autism even though he could not speak, because he simply did not meet the DSM III criteria.

Just in the last few weeks he has been given the diagnosis of autism by two separate psychologists. He qualifies under both DSM IV and DSM V.

Johnny, I have a direct question (which, unfortunately, I predict you’ll studiously ignore):

What in your opinion represents the single most credible and compelling piece of scientific evidence suggesting that at, levels of exposure acheivable by routine vaccination, thimerosal is toxic or otherwise harmful? Be specific.

You keep claiming that all studies which fail to find even the hint of a problem with its use are not to be trusted, because “CONSPIRACY THEORY!”–I’m curious what you would have us rely on instead.

(needless to say the inability to identify even a single good study in support of your claims can only be taken as the tacit admission you in fact have no evidence which supports your position).

“What a pile of medical anecdote, how can the people responsible for making the shit evaluate it?”

Whatever makes you think vaccine evaluating the safety and performance of vaccines is done solely by ” the people responsible for making the sh!t”? There are multiple public and private health care agencies and other independent researchers operating in multiple nations who have examined the possibility of a causal association ebtween vaccination and ASD’s, etc.

Surely you’re not crazy enough to suggest that they’re all part of some vast conspiracy to conceal the dangers of vaccination?

Johnny, your link in #311 directed to a video by Suzanne Humphries–do you really believe that having your own entry in the Encyclopedia of American Loons is consonant with being characterized as a ‘proper doctor’?

I’m actually a bit surprised the the twits haven’t caught on to the fact that mercury is quite volatile – extraordinarily so for a metal – and claim that innocent victims can be poisoned by mercury “shed” by people vaccinated from multi-dose vials.

I worked this up some time ago, then never posted it:
A 10-dose vial typically contains about 250 micrograms of mercury.
A compact fluorescent lamp typically contains about 4000 micrograms of mercury; the “best” available about 1000 micrograms. Except in cold “amalgam” lamps, it exists as liquid mercury or mercury vapor.
USA “average” coal contains about 0.2 ppm of mercury, so it takes about 1.25 kg of coal to contain the mercury equivalent of a 10-dose vial of vaccine.
A median figure for energy yield from coal is 21 MJ/kg, for about 26.3 MJ/vial-equiv. 26.3 MJ will run a 100 W light bulb for about 73 hours.
Or course the mercury in coal is mostly going to stay put til the coal is burned. And the mercury in thimerosal is going to stay oxidized, unless is hooks up with a suitable reducing agent. The former is pretty much a certainty; the latter decidedly less so.

It’s quite clear that Philip Hills, Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, has simply run out of material to recycle, yet despite the failed flounce, he simply can’t resist driving his S/N further into the ground.

Perhaps he’s not getting enough attention at home; I don’t much care. At least the lowercase pseudonym is readily plonkable. One mildly amusing note, however, is that his sudden fixation on the word “knob” is itself derivative, although he apparently still doesn’t get the reference.

Strangely, despite obsessively denying that he is Philip Hills – to the point that he has asserted that Philip Hills has been plagiarizing him – Phildo can’t quite bring himself to actually criticize Philip Hills, despite items such as this.*

I once stayed in an apartment in Warsaw which had a thermometer on the window with temperatures in Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin. You know, just in case it ever got so cold you needed to know how close it was to absolute zero.

There is, however, one thing that I started to reply to but abandoned.

How about this for a film, again a medic who has whistle blown polio vaccination.
h[]tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twch-T-n8Ns

This of course is not a “film,” and Humphries is a screaming hypocrite for continuing to draw a salary as a nephrologist while railing against “allopathic” medicine while selling her conversion to homeopathy, but this is of no import.

What I refrained from mentioning was that (1) trivially, I don’t waste my time on the Death in Life that is argumentum ad Yootoobium and (2) more saliently, Bud Townsend’s Alice in Wonderland might be closer to an intellectual challenge if Philip Hills were to uncharacteristically elect to stick to a (*koff*) flancetto.

Yes but only 2% of ‘immunity’ is acquired, the rest is all fever, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating all the things the medics love to suppress. The 98% depends on good nutrition, something you seem to know little of and other environmental factors.

It makes no sense to try and interfere with the 2%….

Even granting, arguendo, the cartoonishly false premise based on some combination of misreading, selective memory, dishonesty, and plain stupidity, Phildo still loses, given that it’s effector T cells or bust for measles.

“An Assembly committee Wednesday approved an amended version of an intensely fought bill requiring full vaccination for most California students.

The 7-2 vote offered none of the drama of the previous Senate Education Committee hearing, when Senate Bill 277’s authors agreed to delay a vote in the face of hours of stinging testimony and pointed questions from fellow legislators about preserving childrens’ ability to get an education.”

So much for AoA’s frothing about machinations to modify the committee:

“The education committee carried a different roster from the one that halted the bill last week. Gone was Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, who had said he could not support SB 277. His replacement, Sen. Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, voted no. Appointed to fill a vacancy on the panel was Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, who voted for the bill in its previous committee. He voted in favor again on Wednesday.”

“MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — The Vermont Senate has voted to end the philosophical exemption some parents use to decline to have their children vaccinated. The Legislation would require the full range of required vaccinations as a pre-condition to enrolling in school.”

I know that type have been leaving California in dribs and drabs much to the dismay of some of the people I know who live in neighboring states, but is this the thing that will finally drive them all out? and to where?

As to the JAMA paper it is very thin stuff delayed until the day before the vote in California (it was due out last August) and hyped by the media well beyond its miserable substance. If you wanted to do a useful study why would you base it on the billing records of two heavily vaccinated groups? It might just be showing the irrelevance of genetics. The paper’s own discussion admits as much.

This kind of reads like Stone, but whatever. I’d be fascinated to learn how the writer inferred when the paper was “due out’ (JAMA doesn’t even provide a submitted date that I can see).

That’s the danger in this. You get someone like Kennedy on Bill Maher and he bleats out all these antivax talking points, Maher agrees with him, both pat themselves on the back and spew the “I’m not anti-vaccine Im pro-SAFE Vaccine” lie, and then Maher trots out a few more antivax talking points. like the one “the CDC makes money off Vaccines” and “why are there 200 vaccines we have to inject our kids with?” and “it’s deh toxins!” gambit. Yes, RFK JR was indeed on Realtime this week, and did in fact repeat all his standard talking points. The problem being they seem sincere and well-polished and because of this they convince people who would otherwise know better.

[…] It was by an Marcella Piper-Terry, comparing vaccination to rape. True, it could be argued that comparisons to the Holocaust are worse, but let’s just say it’s a tossup. Not surprisingly, Mikey’s latest […]

[…] pro-vaccine safety,” or some similar claim. Of course, whenever I see antivaccinationists likening vaccination to the Holocaust (and themselves to Jews wearing the Yellow Star of David), rape, and felonious assault, I realize […]

[…] of the antivaccine movement, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has used that very same analogy at least twice that I know of. RFK, Jr. is not alone, either. Perhaps the most offensive example of this sort of behavior comes […]

[…] the process towards becoming law, antivaccinationists lose it. Through it all, they’ve been likening the vaccine program to the Holocaust and themselves to the Jews, in the spirit of choosing the most wildly offensive and inappropriate […]

[…] speaking engagements, released some documentary, and gone as far as saying that there is a “vaccine holocaust” going on. He would later apologize for his choice of words, but it is clear that he really […]

Can anyone please point to at least few scientific papers proving vaccine safety, for everyone, at any age and for a big group of people??? Is there a 100% proof ANYWHERE that vaccines really do work??? Do ‘scientists’ really understand how the immune system works in all its details so that they can actually heal cancer? After all these are T-cells and macrophages which decide about the defense. To my knowledge the ‘science’ is FAR AWAY FROM THAT. Every vaccine needs a toxic ‘adjuvant’ which ‘turns on’ the immune system, without that toxic material vaccine is USELESS!!! So making a LAW to force introducing toxins into body, without approval of the OWNER OF THE BODY, is CRIMINAL!!! It corresponds to an ANALOG situation with GMO ‘food’, where incorporation of genes from pathogenic A. Tumefaciens soil bacteria, usually causing cancer in plants (which are WOUNDED!!) end up killing them. That piece of DNA in plant GMO’s allows the introduction into a plant genome, of ANY SET OF GENES, because that’s what that cancerous soil bacteria can do, when there is a WOUND in its root system!!!
Aluminum, mercury or any other of the toxic adjuvants performs exactly the same function in vaccines, which INJURE the body, in order to introduce ‘response’ to the sometimes MANY highly ‘questionable biological samples’ (these days even GENETICALLY MODIFIED!!!). If anyone knows about great 100% safety proofed immune outcome of this procedure, for MANY PEOPLE (each of whom has ENTIRELY DIFFERENT IMMUNE SYSTEM), please post it here. I doubt however anything like that exists, since EVERY VACCINE HAS SFETY SHEETS WITH PAGES OF SIDE EFFECTS, INCLUDING DEATH!!!!

Last, once YOU VACCINATE YOURSELF, and stay presumably safe, why do you still insist that others take THE SAME TOXIC cocktail?? Don’t you trust your vaccines ENOUGH?? You should be safe, yes?? Is it because of love to others, or more to pharmaceutical companies?

chris: “Can anyone please point to at least few scientific papers proving vaccine safety, for everyone, at any age and for a big group of people???”

You should answer my question first: please provide the PubMed indexed studies from reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.

Try reading more of the posts on this blog. Your questions will be answered. We really do not want to do your homework for you.

“Is there a 100% proof ANYWHERE that vaccines really do work???”

Another question, just to see if you understand data and trends, plus if you can think for yourself other than regurgitate the same anti-vax tropes we have heard in over a decade:

The following is census data for measles cases in the USA during the 20th century. Please tell us why measles incidence dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970. Please do not mention deaths, any other disease, any other country (England and Wales are not American states) nor any other decade. Just tell what happened in that decade in that country with the rate of measles cases, and provide supporting evidence for your answer.

Do ‘scientists’ really understand how the immune system works in all its details so that they can actually heal cancer? After all these are T-cells and macrophages which decide about the defense.

It takes two to dance, smart@ss. Cancer cells – well, the ones who go on to develop into a lethal tumor – are very good at escaping the immune system.

And incidentally, yes, scientists have been working for some time at tricking our immune system at doing a better job against tumor cells. A recent development was the use of viruses to either kill the tumor cells or attract the attention of the immune system.
The Wikipedia article on oncolytic viruses is a very interesting reading, as a starting point.